Narrow Plurality Backs Oregon Marijuana Legalization Initiative

The fight to legalize marijuana in Oregon this November is looking like it could be a real nailbiter this November.

A new SurveyUSA poll for KATU-TV found that 44 percent of likely voters plan to vote for Measure 91 while 40 percent plan to vote against it, and the remaining 16 percent remain undecided.

If Undecided broke evenly or simply don’t bother to vote on this question the measure would narrowly win, but when it comes to ballot measures Undecideds often tend to break against change.

There are two reasons to suspect the poll might be slightly underestimating support. The poll question asked “First, Measure 91, which would legalize recreational marijuana for adults aged 21 and older. On Measure 91, are you …” so it didn’t mention that the measure would also tax and regulate marijuana. While that might seem a small difference in other polls having the question explicitly state legal marijuana would be taxed and regulated significantly increases support.

In addition, according to the crosstabs the poll found only 54 percent of voters under 30 plan to support the measure, which is suspiciously low compared to national and other state polling. This age group is one of the hardest for pollsters to get on the phone to answer questions so sampling them accurately is difficult. I won’t be surprised if support among this age group was actually much higher.

Narrow Plurality Backs Oregon Marijuana Legalization Initiative

The fight to legalize marijuana in Oregon this November is looking like it could be a real nailbiter this November.

A new SurveyUSA poll for KATU-TV found that 44 percent of likely voters plan to vote for Measure 91 while 40 percent plan to vote against it, and the remaining 16 percent remain undecided.

If Undecided broke evenly or simply don’t bother to vote on this question the measure would narrowly win, but when it comes to ballot measures Undecideds often tend to break against change.

There are two reasons to suspect the poll might be slightly underestimating support. The poll question asked “First, Measure 91, which would legalize recreational marijuana for adults aged 21 and older. On Measure 91, are you …” so it didn’t mention that the measure would also tax and regulate marijuana. While that might seem a small difference in other polls having the question explicitly state legal marijuana would be taxed and regulated significantly increases support.

In addition, according to the crosstabs the poll found only 54 percent of voters under 30 plan to support the measure, which is suspiciously low compared to national and other state polling. This age group is one of the hardest for pollsters to get on the phone to answer questions so sampling them accurately is difficult. I won’t be surprised if support among this age group was actually much higher.

Jon Walker

Jonathan Walker grew up in New Jersey. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 2006. He is an expert on politics, health care and drug policy. He is also the author of After Legalization and Cobalt Slave, and a Futurist writer at http://pendinghorizon.com